Tuesday, July 2

Gun Manufacturer says Cuomo's New York is not SAFE for business . . .

Gov. Cuomo's middle of the night raid on New Yorkers' constitutional right to keep and bear arms has claimed another victim. Cuomo's so-called "SAFE Act" poses onerous restrictions on the manufacture, sale and possession of previously legal firearms and was passed on a phony "emergency" basis without public notice or debate. Though significant portions of the ill-advised and sloppily drafted legislation will eventually be struck down in court, it's effects will be, in many cases, permanent. Lost jobs is one such case. Pennsylvania can add these manufacturing jobs to the the thousands lost by New York due to Cuomo's fear of the anti-cracking protesters.

Business has been good for Rockland County-based Kahr Arms, so much so that it plans to expand with a new factory on more than 600 acres.

The trouble, at least for New York state: The gun manufacturer, currently based in Rockland County, is expanding across the border in Pennsylvania, and in the process will be moving its headquarters out of the Empire State. The reason, according to a corporate official, can be found in the swift passage last January of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's SAFE gun control law.

It wasn't so much that the measure bans certain kinds of guns and magazines, the company said. Instead, it was the suddenness with which the law was passed — less than 24 hours after being released to the public — leaving Kahr's executives to wonder what kind of unforeseen regulations or restrictions might lie ahead.

"One of our big concerns was, OK, the SAFE Act was passed in the middle of the night. You wake up the next morning and boom, that was it," said Frank Harris, Kahr's vice president of sales and marketing. "We just felt like, gee, if they can do this, what can they do next?